Orchidarium watering question - Orchid Board

spencerj · #1 09-12-2007, 10:53 AM

Hello newbie here. I am going to be purchasing a orchidarium from orchidarium.com (grand cayman) and plan on growing mounted miniatures. Is there some sort of automatic watering system I can put in place? I'm confused by "misting" is that just for humidity or does that water the plants. And if that is to water the plants what do you use for humidity. From my research misting nad fogging are terms that are intermixed the difference seems to be more the density of the water. So if those are just for humidity does any one have any suggestions for a system I can put into place to water the plants automatically off timers? I"m basically trying to set up a complete automated system, where we spend more time enjoying them than maintaining them as well as we travel a fair amount so I need somethign that can take care of itself.

Thanks for any advice

korxi · #2 09-12-2007, 11:16 AM

First to clear up the misting/fogging issue:
Fogging is literaly creating fog in the vivarium, the foggers you buy use some sort of ultrasound device that breaks the water in to tiny tiny drops creating the fog. This is not for watering - just to get humidity up!

Misting (using sprinklers..) is done by forcing water through a nossle whereby it is also broken up in to tiny drops but not as small as the fogger does it..

I use a misting system powered by a diaphragm pump I took from an old esspresso mashine, the nossle I bought at a reptile/pet store. You can probably buy complete misting sets including pump and all at your local pet store (if it is dealing in reptiles etc.). THe important thing here is that you get a high pressure pump at 6 bar or something like that, otherwise it wont work.

You can water your plants with a misting system, just make sure all the plants/roots are hit by the water.. This can easily be set on a timer, you'll need one of the digital ones that can be programmed on a weekly basis - aprox. twice a week does it in my vivarium, but it all depends on how fast the humidity level drops after you've watered.
In my vivarium it goes up to aorund 80-85% when I water and it drops to 60% in 3 days where I water again.

Christian

p.s. I stared a thread with my vivarium in it the other day, you can see my misting setup there

Dorothy · #3 09-12-2007, 01:28 PM

Here is the link to Christian's thread - http://www.orchidboard.com/community...none-less.html

korxi · #4 09-12-2007, 02:06 PM

oh yeah, forgot that

thanks!

Christian

spencerj · #5 09-12-2007, 05:34 PM

wow that looks great. So I guess the trick will be to make sure the mister heads hit each of the plants. So then I should ideally have misters to water and a fogger to keep humidity up assuming that the humidity levels are not high enough with what the misters do?

I was looking at mist king as far as a mister goes and they seem to have everything that I would need.

My next question is the plants that I am looking at are "moist" 3-5 times a week and then "daily" which are 4-7 times a week, I was thinking of setting up two misting system one for each type of plant assuming that I can control the mist to just the area that I want. My question is am I better off giving them a good soak the designated times a week or several short waterings throughout the day.

Thanks for the help and hopefully soon I will have info to share of my own.

korxi · #6 09-14-2007, 10:55 AM

Misting will keep humidity high enough!

In regards to the plants and watering, I would think that the guide to watering you are reffering to is under the assumption that the ambient humidity is low enough for the water on the roots to evaporate relatively fast. Unless you make a lot of vents in your vivarium to allow humidity to escape immediately those schedules are actually useless. If you mist you plants every day you will have a high humidity (aprox. 80%) constantly and the roots will rot! I did exactly that at first and killed all roots on my plants

I think of it this way (I don't know if it is correct

):
The guides to watering you read of in books or on the internaet are made under for people growing orchids in pots or mounted in their home or GH, and are really great for those specific conditions.
However in a vivarium you are more or less trying to mimic the plants' natural conditions. My guess is that those plants you are reffering to are either:

Living in an environment that has a constant very high humidty with occational rains whereby the roots get wet and take a relativly long time drying.

Or living in an environment where they are "watered" by rain very often but then dry rather fast afterwards..

You can't have both climates in one vivarium.. I just go for the high humidty and less frequent watering and hope that the plants will accept it..

Christian